Your Happiness Factor

The Women Left Here is a short poem I wrote a while ago now and it appears on one of my poetry blogs ( Dreaming in Purple and Grey ). Now it is my way of marking this year's special anniversary. I grew up in the 50s and 60s and I heard many stories of women who lost their men in the first World War and how they suffered.  My aunt lost her "young man".  She never spoke of it and she never married.  There was no one to marry; a generation had been lost. But the women who had it hardest were the widows of "other ranks" who were left with children to care for and little or no support. This poem is for them. The Women Left And we the women left Make lives for ourselves. Brave women we, The women left. Like flotsam on a stony shore, We shouldn't be here. Discarded parts! Our seasoned wood Has gone beyond its season. But still we scrub and clean And make our knuckles raw With all your dirty laundry. If not, who'll feed our kids? Br

Don't let the smallest thing ruin your day Here is another inspirational post from contributor, Stephanie Carfrae. She is a Creative Writing Graduate; you can find her own blog  at   www.stephcarfrae.blogspot.co.uk   and I think you will be inspired by Steph's videos on YouTube at  http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkoz1yev_apPjE8XcVrjyjA/videos If one bad happens in a day try not to let it affect the day’s productiveness.  We've all had days when a bad thing happens first thing and the whole day is ruined because of it. But if you just refocus on the positive after the downfall – whatever it may be – you can turn a downward turn into an upward one.  Everyone fails at something in their life – a mis-venture or makes a million mistakes – there’s no plain sailing in life, even if it looks to be on the surface. You can never really tell what’s on someone else’s mind unless they tell you. Nor what’s bubbling beneath the surface of a smile. So try to be kind. One

Life is unpredictable. Here is another inspirational post from contributor, Stephanie Carfrae. She is a Creative Writing Graduate; you can find her own blog  at   www.stephcarfrae.blogspot.co.uk   and I think you will be inspired by Steph's videos on YouTube at  http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkoz1yev_apPjE8XcVrjyjA/videos Life is unpredictable.  Good times won’t last so you need to capture them so you can focus on them at bad times.  Just as good times don’t last, bad times don’t last either. I know it feels never-ending when you are going through a rough patch but believing that things will get better will push good things and times to the forefront. To do this, you need to become more aware of the negative thoughts you let in and stop letting them in. This may seem odd, but in being positive you need to outweigh the negative thoughts in your mind, so first you must be able to recognise the negative thoughts that trouble you every day.  In the light of the ne

Caring is not needing to please x Here is another inspirational post from contributor, Stephanie Carfrae. She is a Creative Writing Graduate; you can find her own blog  at   www.stephcarfrae.blogspot.co.uk   and I think you will be inspired by Steph's videos on YouTube at  http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkoz1yev_apPjE8XcVrjyjA/videos We care too much about what others think of us because we have little confidence in what we do and who we are.  You might disagree with me, wearing a mask of confidence, often people pretend they are confident in what they do hoping that confidence will transfer to who they are. That's the wrong order. You have to be Ok and confident in who you are before you can be confident in what you do. Otherwise you're faking. People won't like admitting it. But you, you are strong enough to admit that confidence can't grow this way.  Confidence grows out of you accepting yourself, all your faults and working them to your benefit. So

Here is another inspirational post from contributor, Stephanie Carfrae. She is a Creative Writing Graduate; you can find her own blog  at   www.stephcarfrae.blogspot.co.uk   and I think you will be inspired by Steph's videos on YouTube at  http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkoz1yev_apPjE8XcVrjyjA/videos We are all at different stages of our lives - every minute (second) of every day. Just because you haven't had what someone else had by this stage in their life doesn't make it wrong and most importantly, it doesn't make you weak. I'm quite relieved that I didn't have to go through everything that Harry Potter did by the time I was eighteen. I know you're saying ' He's a literary character ' but you know what I mean. Wishing your life away until you have what someone else has got is not good for you. It's not good for your health. We all get handed different opportunities and some we seize and some we don't. This can be for many